It is our duty and our privilege to keep America moving forward.

From blood banking to the modern subway, from jazz to social justice, the contributions of African Americans have shaped and molded and influenced our national culture and our national character.

America enjoys the best health care in the world, but the best is no good if folks can't afford it, access it and doctor's can't provide it.

Sound science must be a basis to governing our trade relations around the globe.

If we look to the future, when we talk about outsourcing jobs, when we talk about global competitiveness and our efficiency, none of that matters very much unless we have appropriate training and education for our young people today who are the workforce of tomorrow. It is an economic reality, and we are failing.

I very much feel that marriage is a sacrament and that sacrament should extend and can extend to that legal entity of a union between what traditionally in our Western values has been defined as between a man and a woman.

September 11 impressed upon us that life is a precious gift. Every life has a purpose. And I think we all have a duty to devote at least a small portion of our daily lives to ensuring that neither America nor the world ever forgets September 11.